2 years to this day
by Starstruck
Summary: Do we ever escape the past? What are we really looking for, and what do we really get when we try and tie up loose ends? *Contains some controversial subjects such as suicide, abortion etc.*
1. Default Chapter

He came in, nervously running his hand through his hair. He saw me sitting at my desk, and stared at me with large strange eyes. I looked up at him, while filing my nails.  
  
"Can I help you?" I shot putting down the nail file, politeness dripping from my lips like acid. I hate when people stare. It's rude.  
  
"I'm… looking for private detective Wayne David. I uh…was told I would find him here. This is his office right?" He swallowed.  
  
I stared at him, frowning. He didn't look like he could afford a private dectective.  
  
"Did you make an appointment?"  
  
"No…but I really need to talk…"  
  
"He's not here. Come back later." I said curtly, admiring my almond shape nails.  
  
"You're his secretary?" He blinked.  
  
"Yes. I'll tell him you've come. Do you wish to make an appointment? I can organize-"  
  
"No. Maybe you can help me." He interrupted sitting by the chair by my desk.  
  
My frown deepened. He stared, his eyes wide and strange. I sighed, tired, and mumbled "Alright. But I won't be able to do anything."  
  
He cleared his throat, hw told me he and his girlfriend had separated 2 years ago-2 years to this day and he wanted to find her again.  
  
"I've never seen a missing person where the missing person is happy to be found." I said coldly.  
  
He looked at his lap.  
  
"Let me be direct."  
  
He looked up.  
  
"If you have fantasues about a tearful reunion or life going as before, then I advise you keep your money, Mr. David may find your girlfriend. But she won't be the woman you remembr. She will not be happy to see uii ,she may even be mad at you or not reconginze you. She may of married, have another life altogether. If you accept these possibilities and you still want Mr.David to find him…"  
  
He nodded quickly and then shoved his hand in his pocket and took out a crumpled piece of paper. Looking closer at it, it was a letter.  
  
I stared, He stared at me wanting me to say "what's that?" After a minute I oblidged.  
  
"What's that?" I cleared my throat.  
  
"A parting gift from my girlfriend. A letter saying why she was leaving."  
  
"When did you try contacting her?"  
  
"Yes…no."  
  
"You did try or you didn't?"  
  
"I did write her letters, but not at frist. She didn't reply back/ "  
  
"How long did you wait?"  
  
"A month."  
  
"Why did you wait so long?"  
  
"I don't know.Maybe I figured she would come back… no…I was scared, and I tried to forget her. Figured that it wouldn't hurt if I pretended to be over her."  
  
"It didn't work."  
  
"No. It didn't." He agreed.  
  
We sat in silence for a moment.  
  
"OK" I sighed. "Forget the letter for the moment. Has your girlfriend run off before this?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Did she say where she was going?"  
  
"Yes. I checked there yesterday. She doesn't live there anymore."  
  
"Who told you?"  
  
"Her grandmother."  
  
"So, let me get this straight. your girlfriend leaves you suddenly, leaving behind a letter. You don't contact her for a month because you try and get over her. She doesn't reply back. So then after 2 years you contact a private investigator ti help find her."  
  
"That's correct."  
  
He looked at me, his eyes searching for something,  
  
"So…what haooened the night before she disappeared=what happened?"  
  
" I took her out, we ate dinner. I took her to nice quiet place. Then I proposed to her. She didn't reply she just stood there in silence and then started running as fast as she could away from me. I called, trying chasing after her but she gotten to far; the next morning, there was a letter from her on the doorstep. This letter. She said she moved away. "  
  
"So what do you think happened to her:  
  
:I have no idea. That;s why I;m here." Again the look, waiting for something to happen.  
  
"You must have some idea.. you dated how long?"  
  
"2 years. I had ideas. But none of them seem possible. 


	2. Living in Dreams

YaY! Thanks for reading ! I appreciate it!!!!!!!!!!!! (  
  
  
  
He shifted in his seat.  
  
"In her letter she said she ran away from me because her parents wouldn't let her get married and forced her to go away. But I know she was lying. She left because she wanted to leave. But I can't blame her for leaving. In fact I might almost respect her for it." He said, his voice low, his eyes lowered, he took the letter and stuffed it back in his pocket quickly.  
  
"Respect her-how?"  
  
"My girlfriend was a nice girl, a good girl , a pretty girl and an incredibly dreamy girl. She had no place in my town. I 'm okay with my dead end job, and my buddies and the rumbles. She wasn't all right with it. She told me sometimes that she was sick of this town. She needed an reason to leave, and I gave her one. She wouldn't stay and wither just for me."  
  
"And you speak of her in past tense."  
  
"Do I? I hadn't noticed. I suppose it's been so long." He sighed as if the whole world was hopeless.  
  
He readjusted the collar on his jacket.  
  
"She lived in her own dreams. She would dream about traveling, and being a working lady. Like you." He said quietly.  
  
"Me?"  
  
"Yes. She found the idea of working exciting. She didn't want to stay home and clean. "  
  
"Trust me, working is probably less exciting then staying at home and cleaning." I laughed bitterly.  
  
"Yes but the idea of it…that's what made her like it. She liked the idea of doing something more important and exciting like working."  
  
"So you say."  
  
"Sandy please…!" He croaked.  
  
He reached out a hand ran his fingers down the side my cheek. I sat very still.  
  
His eyes brimmed with tears, his whole body and hands trembling.  
  
"Oh Sandy…" 


	3. Different

I cannot thank everyone enough 4 reading and reviewing! ( Warning:Long winded this chapter  
  
He does not take his fingers away. I sit still, staring straight at him. He does not bother to wipe his tears away. He does not need to. The tears brim then disappear slowly, but his eyes are still red. His hand was sweating heavily. I stare at his face.  
  
His face is very interesting, Staring closer at his face, I can see stubble on his chin. He had rings around his eyes. You can also see a few faint acne scars on the right side of his face, and the tiny red veins in his brown eyes. If I were to look closely at his face with a microscope, I would see thousands of germs, wiggling inside his pores, ready to explode any second into a big zit…  
  
Now he is shaking one of his legs up and down nervously. His body is still.  
  
Up and down up and down, up and down goes the leg. He slowly pries his hand off my cheek. My cheek feels better.  
  
"Hello Mr. Curtis." I say blankly.  
  
He pauses, he looks at me strangely.  
  
"It's office policy to call someone Mr. or Ms. I supposed to be at my important and exciting work you know." I glare at him.  
  
He doesn't reply.  
  
He looks like an actor that's forgotten his lines. Maybe he paced outside the office door for a long time, thinking of what to say. Rehearsal time is over, and now it is show time. Up and down, up down, up down.  
  
His look is still expectant. He wants something to happen. He wants me to laugh and cry and tell him I love him.  
  
Instead I say quietly:  
  
"You look older."  
  
He seems old. I can imagine his brown hair turning gray, his muscles turn slack, his tight skin on his face hang loose on his face, his posture grow hunched, his bright brown eyes turning misty and forlorn.  
  
Up, down, up, down, up, down.  
  
"How are things?" He blinks.  
  
"I have a job. I have a place, I share it with a room mate."  
  
He nods. His leg nods.  
  
Silence. No, silence is bad. One of us must do something. Anything. The show must go on.  
  
He wants me to embrace him and put my legs around his waist.  
  
I shift my chair a few inches away from him and keep my arms and legs close tightly together around myself. .  
  
His leg shaking becomes faster. His leg is a machine, a sewing machine's needle going up and down faster and faster.  
  
He stops shaking his leg. He sighs, looking at his lap. He puts his one of his hands on the back of his neck. Oh, the drama.  
  
I am changed. This is new and scary. I was a dreamer, the sweet girl, and his girlfriend in a past life. He was young, reckless, and laidback. We are meeting again in present life now. We are both different.  
  
He is old and dramatic, speaks in a low voice and so nervous that he sighs and shakes. He never sighed or shaked or spoke so low before.  
  
He is the last person I want to see now, I am hard and often rude now, and you can't afford to have dreams when you have bills to pay and food to get on the table.  
  
I wonder what has made him this way. Did I? No, it couldn't of. Maybe he only acting this way with me, maybe he acts normal in front of everyone else. I don't know what. He reaches into his jacket pocket, to show me what.  
  
He pulls out a crumpled newspaper sheet, and unfolds it and lays it on the table.  
  
On the top it read in bold print:  
  
Delinquent Youth Turn Into Heroes  
  
And underneath were photos of Ponyboy, Johnny and Dally.  
  
I looked up at him.  
  
His leg was shaking again. 


	4. Flowers and violins

Hi! Sorry it took so long!!! Exams and homework suck. Wow, there r so many new stories!!!!  
  
Dallas. Blond. Mean. Johnny. Dark. Shy. Ponyboy. Soda look a like. Quiet. I remember them.  
  
I remember the entire gang. Darry. Muscular. Workaholic. Steve. Weird hair. Cocky. Two-Bit. Eyebrow. Wisecracking.  
  
Maybe I can pretend I don't.  
  
I stare at the newspaper. The headline screams. I don't want to read it. I don't want to touch it. Anything from Tulsa is unclean. Anyone from Tulsa is a zombie.  
  
He stares at me.  
  
"You won't read it?" He says stiffly, his leg wobbling. It's a leg shaking marathon.  
  
He is boring me. He should do something to catch my eye. Maybe he can do a little dance or sing a song. Or take his shirt off. That's it. Go ahead Soda. Take it off.  
  
"..." I reply.  
  
" Fine, I'll read it to you." He `s on the edge of patience. He doesn't take his shirt off.  
  
Rustle rustle says the paper as he grabs it.  
  
He blinks and then begins with the date. How appropriate.  
  
"January 21,1967" he says this slowly.  
  
Then the headline.  
  
"Delinquent Youth Turns into Heroes."  
  
He reads it, word for word. He is frowning, whether from he is concentrating or this story disturbs him I don't know. Sometimes his voice cracks, and becomes hoarse then he clears his throat and starts again. He reads like a little boy saying his ABC's, slowly and carefully so his teacher can praise him and give him a gold star sticker.  
  
The story is crazy.  
  
" trapped in a burning church..."  
  
It's not real.  
  
"rescued ..."  
  
It's fiction.  
  
"brave...heroic"  
  
You're lying.  
  
"wanted for murder..."  
  
I'm waiting for your pants to burst into flame.  
  
"self defense..."  
  
Forget being a gas station guy. You should be a writer because you're very creative  
  
"street gangs...fight"  
  
Stop talking please.  
  
"separate...orphans..."  
  
SHUT UP!  
  
"be a shame..."  
  
LIAR!  
  
Finally it ends. Thank God. He puts the paper down.  
  
He stares at me. He wants me to give him his gold star sticker.  
  
I don't care. Caring takes too much effort. Basically, Ponyboy, and Johnny rescued some kids. Dally rushed in and saved Ponyboy and Johnny. Johnny wanted for murder but he was only defending himself. The Curtis's could be separated. I'm hungry, what am I going to have for dinner tonight?  
  
This is ridiculous. I should walk away. I'm afraid to walk away. Why? I've done it before.  
  
"Jesus." I say out loud, he is contented with that. It's the right thing to say. Pat yourself on the back Sandy.  
  
"Did that all really happen? It's so... so...incredible. " Lather up conversation.  
  
"Yes." Rinse away disbelief making confirmation. The leg is shaken well.  
  
"Jesus." Repeat the right thing to say.  
  
So it's true. It doesn't make it realer in my mind. It's still some just a story, ink on paper, sounds out of a mouth. It's all just a story... all a story. It's not true! Not true I tell you! Not true I say!  
  
I don't have any food at home, haven't done any grocery shopping, nether has my roommate.  
  
"Are you guys separated?"  
  
And I'm certainly sick of eating burgers and fries. But I can't afford anything else.  
"No."  
  
All right. That's all fine and good. That's lovely. That's wonderful. Very nice. The story is a happy one.  
  
"Is Johnny okay? "  
  
Why of course he is. Then everyone would be happy. Everyone would live happily ever after and I won't have to care.  
  
Maybe I'll just skip dinner and smoke a lot of cigarettes to make up for it.  
  
"...Johnny's dead." His leg is a blur it's moving so fast.  
  
Jesus. He's dead. Lying in a box somewhere. Not breathing. He's dead!  
  
How did... when ?! He's dead. That's one way of getting out of prison. No. I just don't believe it. He can't be dead, because zombies are already dead.  
  
"He's ... dead?"  
  
"He got hurt saving those kids." His eyes bore into mine. He is angry I think. He knows I called Johnny a zombie in my head and he is cussing me out with those eyes. I'm imagining it.  
  
Poor Johnny. His story is one that should be accompanied with violins and flowers. He became a hero, with the cost of his life. How brave, how romantic, how stupid. I never did know Johnny. Now I'd never know him. He was too quiet. Maybe he wasn't a zombie. Maybe he hated Tulsa as much as I did. Maybe he just couldn't escape. Maybe.  
  
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" I cry. It sounds weasel-like and fake and my voice is hoarse at the end.But why should I be sorry? Sorry? You can be sorry about anything. What does sorry that give anyone? It wasn't my fault...  
  
Or was it?  
  
I should do something nice. I make myself frown and my eyes widen. I must do something comforting. I slowly and gently put my fingers on his arm. His jacket is filthy. The leather feels grimy. I am will sacrifice my hygiene because this is the right thing to do. My heart is pounding. I am afraid.  
  
"It's okay." He says softly. He stares at my fingers. He is deciding something. He is deciding whether to tell me something.Then again I don't know for sure. I can only guess what Soda is thinking. Soda can only guess what I'm thinking.  
  
Soda is a lousy guesser.  
  
He is going to shake his leg off.  
  
"Do you wanna get out of here?" He raises his eyes, he is frowning.  
  
Yes I do. Out the window.  
  
Huh?" I squeak dumbly. My stomach jumps, I don't know why.  
  
"Go eat." His face softens a little, same hard curt tone.  
  
My heart thuds. I want to cry loud stupid tears. I will sit here and weep hopelessly! Then he will leave me alone and we will become old alone. No, only Soda will be old, not me. I will be young and alone. Cigarettes are meant to be shared. Alone is a very sad word. I need dinner.  
  
"Alright." I say very tonelessly. His lips twitch ever so slightly at the edges.  
  
Yes Soda. Cram me full of food please, because I am an empty shell. 


	5. Heart and Soul

Thanks so much for reading and reviewing! You are all so great! It means a lot to me. There are so many stories to read. Yay! I can't read or review them all right now. Anyway, this chapter is just boring and slow.  
  
****  
  
We walk out; we are walking down the stairs. Why we don't use the elevator I don't know. My hand is on the railings; I watch my hand slide down the railing as I walk. The railing needs a fresh coat of paint. I will share my cigarettes and eat lunch/dinner with him. (I say lunch/dinner because it is too late for lunch but too early for dinner) That is all I will do.  
  
His hands in his pockets. He is morose, he is pale and he is staring at me.  
  
I look away. His eyes will strangle me. No, they will pierce me. Or they'll strangle me then pierce me. Or pierce me then strangle. Does it matter? Either way, I'm dead.  
  
"I'm sorry about Johnny." It's easier to say. I am a good liar. I cannot stress it enough; I must prove to him I have a deep heart and soul. That I feel bad, have some emotion, that he will leave here without me comforted that I sincerely (So he thinks) sympathize with him. Maybe I will cry too, during lunch/dinner. I'll just have to find a way to poke myself in the eye while he's not looking, and I will cry. I will somehow manage to look pretty while I cry as well. I won't cry too long, and then I'll pull myself together and dab my eyes lightly and sit up straight with quiet dignity.  
"Sandy has a good heart and soul." He'll think.  
  
And after he thinks that, I then will say, " Now, shoo. You making me lose my appetite. I don't marry you, you idiot."  
  
"Don't be." He says tonelessly. He's used to people telling him they're sorry about Johnny. He's tired of it. He wants me to stop.  
  
"He was very brave." I say very gently, I won't stop because I haven't done anything he's wanted today and I won't start now. I am gentle damnit!  
  
"He was." He says this; his voice is soft like a murmur. Then he twists at me suddenly, like a snake lurching forward.  
  
"Where do you want to eat?" Says Soda the snake. Please don't bite me Sodapop.  
  
" I know a restaurant close by. I need to get back to work soon." Wayne will kill me when I get back. I don't care; I `ll say I had to leave because of an emergency. Nobody ever calls his office anyway. How he gets any money I don't know. I don't care as long as he pays me in full and on time.  
  
We walk in silence about 2 feet away from each other. It's all right; the nearest restaurant is close enough, only a block away. We are young, we walk fast. It is too fast to make any conversation. It is all too fast. We will zoom through our youth, and forget to stop and ask where we were going and then suddenly we will be old. No, only Soda. He is already old. Snake years are different then people years.  
  
Soda holds the door open for me. He does this as if this is a sacred duty. Then he enters. Spuds is a boring restaurant, a typical fast food joint. It has copper colored plastic booths and gray plastic tables. There are abandoned smashed French fries and assorted condiments on the tiled floor. The place is empty. We are the only customers. The lights are bright and low hanging. Cheap lights. Cheap food. Cheap people. Soda and I belong here.  
  
We are both greasers, no matter where we are, we like to wear grease and we like to eat grease.  
  
No matter where you go, there's the rich and popular and the poor and tragically unpopular.  
  
Greasers are underdogs. Soc's are top dogs. Greasers drink booze because of hard times. Soc's drink whisky because they have no hard times, and they are bored. Greasers lose. Soc's win. Greasers get pregnant. Soc's get in a family way. Greasers die. Soc's pass away.  
  
Greasers are people who get their legs stuck in bear traps, and then gnaw their own legs because they don't see the key lying next to them. Soc's wouldn't get their legs caught in the first place.  
  
We are in greasy crummy fast food land. We are home Soda.  
  
"I'll stand in line." He says, carefully, as if he is waiting for me to smack him and scream NO I WANT TO STAND IN LINE YOU BASTARD! Maybe I should do that. It would make it very exciting.  
  
I nod. Uh-huh. Yes. I agree. You should stand in line.  
  
"I'll get the table." I say, I must be helpful as well as sympathetic.  
  
He nods. You should get the table Sandy.  
  
"I'll have a small fries and a milkshake." I say. I'm hungry, but I can't order too much or I'll look bad. I must be dainty. Mustn't I? Yes, that is what mother teaches us.  
  
"You should never eat too much in front of a boy, he'll think you're a pig. You never get a man if you're such a pig Sandy. You'll be an old maid. Or else you'll have a no good husband, like your father. What do you say about that? Hmmmmm? Answer me! "  
  
I hate my mother.  
  
He doesn't nod. That is disappointing. He turns and walks to the counter, where there is a zitty pale-faced boy at the cashier. 


	6. Outside the box

This is a Very LONG chapter. I know it's a weird story. Well, that putting it lightly. LOL. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing. (Bows and scrapes)  
  
****  
  
Soda comes back. Darn. He is carrying a tray of food. He is ready to feed me, like a bird mother come back to feed her chick. No, he is a snake fattening me up so I will taste better when he swallows me up whole.  
  
Soggy fries and lumpy milkshake. Yum. Yum.  
  
Soda's skin looks yellow in this light. It is cheap light. He looks like a piece of banana carefully carved to look like him. He is a banana snake.  
  
My skin must be yellow too. Do I look good yellow? I wonder. I have to start smoking more to find out. Nicotine stains your skin yellow. Maybe there's so much nicotine in the air at Spuds, Soda and my skin is stained yellow forever. We'll be freaks, and people will stare and point and laugh. Then we'll have to marry each other because no one wants to marry a yellow person.  
  
I will quit smoking.  
  
He puts the tray down. He slowly sits at the chair across from me.  
  
He then stares at me. His eyes are soft and sad, they silently scream: ABUSE ME! He is a sly snake. He is doing this is soften me up so when he swallows me he can digest me easier.  
  
He's killing me.  
  
I need to get out of here. Fast. My stomach can wait. For a few minutes.  
  
"I need to use the restroom." I declare. The restroom is my refuge. I pray silently that there is a restroom.  
  
I look around frantically. No restroom that I can see...please let there be one! PLEASE!  
  
"Over there." The snake points. Interesting. Snakes do not have arms.  
There are 2 doors in the corner of the restaurant. One with a girl stick figure. One with a boy stick figure. They seem to glow with a golden light, like holy objects. Yes, the restroom is my savior!  
  
"Thank you." I try not to sound too eager. I try not to skip my way to doors. I'm glad my back is turned to him. He does not see me grin so hard my yellow face will split in two.  
  
I open the door. And enter.  
  
It smells bad. Like cheap disinfectant. So my savior smells bad, so what?  
  
It has white sinks in a row like soldiers. "Attention hut! One, two,three, four!" they call in unison. All of them unclean with remains of used soap and used water.  
  
There are stalls; they have misty cobalt blue plastic thin doors. All of them are open; the toilets sit there, like giant ships in there own parking space. They look proud. "Ready for duty!" they cry.  
  
The floor. It is sinless shining white tile.  
So why are there flecks of red splattered over it here and there?  
  
I look up. I look in the farthest corner. I freeze.  
  
There is a man in the corner. He is young. He is leaning against the wall. He is blond; his hair is long and speckled with blood. His eyes are wide and glassy. His face is covered in splatters of blood and sweat. Blood flows out both corners of his mouth like ants escaping from their anthill. His blood is escaping from him. He breathes sharply and loudly like an animal dying breaths. One hand in on the stall door supporting him. Another hand is holding his midsection like a pregnant woman holding her stomach .His mid section is blackened and reddened with blood from a deep wound, blood seeps and spreads through his white shirt, blooming like a violent rose. The blood flows down his jeans. His tattered sneakers are streaked with crimson. Underneath him is a shining scarlet puddle.  
  
He is bloody and brutal. He is frightening and silent and bloody like a dead newborn. He is an animal, primal and fighting a losing battle. Dear God, he is bloody. He is the god of violence, guns will grow from his fingertips and bombs will sprout under his feet. He will leave a bloody trail wherever he goes.  
  
This is a dream. It must.  
  
His glassy wide eyes see me.  
  
"Woo! There's enough blood to paint a barn in here!" he cries grinning maniacally fanning himself with one hand caked with blackish blood, he bears sharp little teeth like fangs reddened with blood. He is vampiric. Then suddenly he starts coughing, his body jerks and shudders. He bends over slightly. He wretches and gags like a cat on a hairball. Fresh crimson blood flies from his mouth and splatters on the beautiful sinless white floor. He has forever ruined my savior.  
  
He is a monster.  
  
He is pitiful.  
  
He is disgusting.  
  
He is a pitiful monster.  
  
He is a monster that has destroyed many buildings and stepped on many people, but then someone has shot him with an airplane, and he falls dramatically to the ground in slow motion and lies on his side dying helpless, you cannot help but feel sorry for him.  
  
Everywhere is red. Red is an awful color. I will vomit. I will be sick and then collapse and never wake up. I need to calmly back away, then calmly leave the ladies room, then calmly run down the street screaming. I am a fool; I am blundering in front of him. He will destroy me and then he will tally me with the other thousands he has stepped on.  
  
Who knew King Kong was blonde?  
  
I must scream. My heart thumps. I must scream for Soda the snake. The two will battle each other Soda the Snake vs. Blonde Bloody King Kong. They will become giant and smash buildings. They will snarl at each other like angry animals. Soda the Snake will be victorious and stand over King Kong's defeated form and yell out a triumphant incoherent roar.  
  
This is a dream. It is not real! It can't! It can't!  
  
"Oh, come on! You, me! We're having a party. Why should you be scared? I'm the one holding my guts in with my hand." He mockingly pleads with me as he staggers forward towards me, leaving bloody foot prints. His blue eyes are wider, and sweat drips from side of his face mixing in with dried blood. Blood and sweat cocktail. All we need now is tears.  
  
"I know what you're thinking. It's a dream right?" He says this cold and casually, he cocks his head to one side, and his neck makes a sickening cracking noise.  
I do not answer. I want my mother; I want the old cow. Where the stupid sow when you need her?  
  
"I'm gonna have to expand your mind Sandy. You gotta think outside the box so to speak. " He clucked, his grin is demented, he makes a box with his bloody hands.  
  
Then he pauses; he strokes his chin making both face and hands bloodier. His blood is face paint, it is savage makeup.  
  
"You do know who I am. Right?"  
  
A dead newborn. A dying animal. King Kong. God of violence. Vampire.  
"Dream." I croak.  
  
"We're covered that already Sandy. " He claps his hands together childishly; he says my name like poison. He is a twisted little boy, who enjoys throwing rocks at dogs and cats and pulling wings off flies. I hate boys like that. Their laughter is horrible and obnoxious like his" Nuh-huh-huh-ha-ha-ha-heh-nuh!"  
  
"Dream."  
  
" That again. I'm disappointed in you Sandy. I thought you remembered us all. You know who I am Sandy. Blond...mean... give ya a hint...some where in Texas..." He shouts, he is smiling like a lunatic, he throws his head back looking at the ceiling, blood drips from his mouth and down his neck, like paint dripping down a wall.  
  
Dear God. Nuh-huh-huh-ha-ha-ha-heh-nuh! All the cruel little boys in the world are laughing at me right now. I am a mangy dog, cat, fly to them all.  
  
"You're..." I croak.  
  
NO! NO! Nuh-huh-huh-ha-ha-ha-heh-nuh ! they all laugh, they are all rolling on the ground in hysterics.  
  
"Here it comes. Realization dead ahead." He says airily, he lowers his head lazily to look down on me, with a repugnant glance. I am gum at the bottom of his bloody shoe.  
  
Red.  
  
Black.  
  
Roses.  
  
Thorns.  
  
Ketchup.  
  
Paint.  
  
Pain.  
  
Art.  
  
Scabs.  
  
Scars.  
  
Death.  
  
Sleeping Beauty.  
  
Blood.  
  
"...bleeding..." I finish.  
"Not too bright are ya Sandy? " He sneers, the blood at the corners of his mouth make it look like a clown's makeup, a sad clown. The saddest clown is the world. Nobody laughs at him. It is hard to laugh at someone who coughs up blood.  
  
"I praise you Sandy in this and only this. When you're life's hell, it's better to dream then to kill yourself. A lot less bloody too. Hand me a paper towel will ya?" 


	7. Help?

Hey! Too many tests homework blah blah... this chapter is rather short and aimless. As I write this story, i notice it gets stranger and stranger, but i didn't mean it to be that way, it just happened! Anyway, to everyone who read or reviewed, thank you so much!!! Oh,yeah the story okay, here it goes:  
  
  
  
You killed yourself?" I whisper we mustn't let THEM know, must we? This is our little secret, hush hush!  
  
I imagine Dallas , lying in a filthy puddle, newspapers fluttering by in a street alley, cold, pale and foaming at the mouth (why foaming?), his body jerking with uncontrollable spasms, maybe with his shirt ripped ever so slightly, and his jeans with a long tear down the side. He makes little quiet noises, as he struggles to breathe, like this "hgnn! Unn! (Hack) Uh- guh!" like soft vomiting noises.  
  
Then I imagine the Loyal Gang standing above him, silent with their eyes slightly cast downward at their feet. As he lays dying, they pay their solemn respects. They put things in his arms like a 6 pack of beer, and a Playboy (a brand new Playboy not a-ahem- used one) and a pack of cigarettes. Then they all pull out their switchblades in unison, the light shining on them, oh cue the violins! They raise their muscular arms in the air, and switch the blade out all at the same time giving him a switchblade salute; oh those damn heroic boys in denim and leather, oh!  
  
Then 2-Bit will drop his impressive 10 or was it 12? inch switchblade and it will fall blade first into Dallas's crotch.  
  
"Whoops!"  
  
It is funny like I Love Lucy. I like I Love Lucy. Laugh. Laugh like an audience in I Love Lucy. Ha ha ha heh (one of the voice louder then the others)  
  
Fine, go ahead, believe I am sick and twisted. Perhaps I am, but would a sick twisted person watch I Love Lucy? I think not.  
  
"Kinda." He says this cheerfully, does a cute little shrug, as if we are discussing the weather. Are we discussing the weather, and I didn't hear right? Probably, i never hear right. I hear wrong. I am wrong. I should walk with a big red X on me, because I am so bumbling clumsy, wrong. But I look like I'm right, i am a tick that if you look closely enough I am a big X.  
  
He is King Kong; we are on the Empire State Building. I am the blonde pretty girl grasped in his fists screaming. Fighter airplane whiz around us, tiny people scream and run below us on the street in keen hysteria.  
  
Suicide is mysterious. It is sin. It is horrible. It is frightening. For some reason, it is so traumatic-tragic, romantic, that it is almost beautiful. I blame Shakespeare and his Romeo and his Juliet. It is his entire fault. It is their entire fault. Death is mysterious- it is permanent, inevitable, happens to everyone one day-does that apply to me too?  
  
No, why ofcourse not!  
  
"I had a bit of help through." He adds casually, a mixture of blood and drool drips down his lips slowly ever so slowly; it is the red bubbling stream travelling down the rocky terrain of his stubble skin.  
  
Help?  
  
Did someone give him a teeny push off the building? Gently nudge the chair from beneath him? Push his weak little finger to the trigger? Screw open the bottle of pills for him? (Those childproof caps are so tricky!) Did he call a hotline and ask "How do I kill myself?" and a pleasant female voice answered: You can do it by slicing your wrist open sir!"  
  
"Why thankyou!" he would chirps, happy as a lark.  
  
'No problem sir, glad I could help!" The woman's voice sings back.  
  
That lady must have the best job in the world!  
  
"EEEEE!" The little people below shriek. 


	8. ...because it's necessary

IMPORTANT NOTE:Okay, this chapter is about Sandy's relationship with Soda and Tulsa- it explains things. It has NOTHING to do with Sandy in the bathroom and Dallas . This part is boring and pretty crappy, but it felt nessecary.  
  
BABBLING THAT YOU MIGHT AS WELL SKIP: I read some stories! (Yay!) Haven't reviewed. But they're really good. Thank you for reading or reviewing this cruddy story, and my other cruddier story. And super thanks if you criticize teachers, because they deserve it. Thank you, thank you , thank you. (worship)  
  
*****  
  
See Sodapop.  
  
Look at him, smiling and waving. See him put strawberry globs of jelly on oil drenched eggs. Look at him, hopping, joking- as light as air! He is the marshmallow in hot chocolate. He is the prize in the bottom of cracker jacks. He is the goose of Christmas dinner. He is the jelly on his eggs. He is pinhead for the pin. He is venom of the snake.  
  
He is a snake.  
  
I admit that once I did- almost- may -COULD of loved him (it was a time of weakness)  
  
He was very pretty. He was very soft. He was an orphan. He was a pretty soft orphan. He had nobody to take care of him, and he was soft and pretty.  
  
He brought out our buried maternal instincts. How the girls would like to take care of him, to feed him, to clean him, to dress him in nice clothing, to make him smile because he was soft and pretty.  
  
He brought out our hunter instincts, how the girls would compete to gain his attention. Smiling flirtatiously, fixing their makeup nervously, wearing tighter sweaters, and competing -who could exchanging witty banter with him because he was soft and pretty.  
  
He brought out sexual instincts, how girls would stare at him when he moved wishing he would take his shirt off off. Sometimes he wore shirts that showed some of hard muscles. The girls would blush, giggle and swoon, and whisper because he was hard and pretty.  
  
I could have loved him. I could have loved how he lit my cigarettes (slowly, letting the match nearly burn out to his finger tips), and how he would listen occasionally (his arm around my shoulder, hand cupped on my shoulder rubbing it gently). I could have loved his smile (toothy wide trademark), his laughter (Hee ha hee ha!), his breathing (harsh and raspy). I could of loved fingertip burning, shoulder rubbing, toothy smiled, hee ha hee ha, harsh and raspy, soft and pretty snake.  
  
I could of loved Tulsa too.  
  
It could have been magical- colorful and bright. The glamorous crimson of lipstick, the outrageous red of our faces when we are drunk, the piercing scarlet of our eye veins when we are hung over, the dreamy blue of denim, the dull black of leather, the depressing black and blue bruises that disrupt out bodies, the gold of beer, the frothy white of the head of beer, gasoline rainbow puddles that line the streets with thousands of colors swirled into them, the cold gray of concrete and the graffiti written or craved on them: Sex! , Lucy and Robert together forever, call me for a good time (with no number listed)  
  
The color makes into an urban soup and glazes over our eyes until we only see the colors. And we cannot peel off the color because then we would become blind and it goes into our veins and burns like battery acid.  
  
We die, without seeing anything else and having ourselves being slowly burnt away in nothingness- and nobody notices it. It was about time someone did  
  
Tulsa is Disney land to the blind and burning. Ahhh, smell the smell of cheap perfume on the girls, and the how the perfume has gotten on the boys after they had fun with the girls!  
  
Come see it! Look in the dark, we don't need an electric parade, you will see our lighted cigarettes by the thousands leaping in the dark. We enjoy you. We enjoy flirting with you, drinking with you, borrow your money and not paying you back, our one-night stands with you, stealing from you, fighting with you (sometimes we use blades when you're lucky!)  
  
I could of loved them Tulsa and Soda both. Really they're a set. Soda is one of Tulsa many attractions.  
  
And how my feelings of could-be love, slowly turned to unease, then to envy, then to disgust until a black mixture of all three that bubbled and I wanted to vomit it all over him.  
  
How did love turn to vomit?  
  
I could love you Soda- but wait…  
  
Everyone wants to be your buddy Sodapop. Everybody wants to know you. Everybody wants you. I want you.  
  
Why?  
  
What is your secret Sodapop?  
  
Why am I not like you Sodapop?  
  
How can you smile all the time and not have your face ache Sodapop?  
  
How can you even exist Sodapop?  
  
Aren't you a little cheerful for a damned orphan eh Sodapop?  
  
I wanted to kill him. To make him ugly, human, and frown and down with the others and me that wanted him. I could have loved him one time but I did love that I could make him frown. To shove his smiling face in acid .  
  
And I wanted to kill him before anyone else did. 


	9. mother the flag

Sry. Have writers block. If any1 have any ideas u can tell me. Sry if u dun't get it.  
  
;;;;;  
  
Please I beg of you understand. I could not bear both Tulsa (hallelujah for grizzled lip, snuff chew, bended slow walk and shit talk of Tulsa) Oh, and the women. I hear their swear scowling, giggling, tiny talk, nappy knobs of hair grease flattened, and their va-voom va-voom figures. And that Soda (doing his greaser slouch walk, vertical heel tap, one step like dancing to a juke box, and his hips swivel) Greasers wander towards their deaths, but cling on their lives while screaming and spitting black transparent tobacco juice.  
  
I tried to kill Soda. Snapping at him. Looking at other spit shined slouching boys. Letting him kiss me and touch my arms and waist greedily in the backseat of a car, until we were flesh and on flesh. His limbs on me as heavy and clumsy like suffocating limber starchy as limbs could be, and we became older and older more brittle and weak and ugly and foolish until we became petrified in solid stone. And then I would stop him suddenly, saying please stop before he got to anything he could whisper or brag to his friends about and he would obey and stop because he is a memoir of self-deception, of fleeting mincule pleasure, he take his lemons and instead of making it into lemonade – he draws a little happy face on the lemon's skin and smiles.  
  
He got on his knees and cried "Oh Sandy Please let me take care of you.I know I don't have much money but I promise that I'll find a way I'll do anything for you I'll make you so happy baby say yes I love you I love you I love you I love you I LOVE Y-"  
  
SLASH. Thud.  
  
I killed him.  
  
His face- oh priceless- so confused and his divine unconditional happiness dripped to the floor running down like a gapping wound in large sticky brown murky puddles that stuck to my shoes so that to have his precious happiness he would bow down and lick the bottom of my shoes- shoes he would never get a chance to lick because I ran so wonderfully fast from his oozing cropse.  
  
I could of died then. Laughing until my sides burst and my innards unraveled. They would put me in a beautiful shiny dark wood casket, enshrined, so they can lie about me, sweet lies. Lie and say that I was good, wore long skirts, no acne, and had no smell, that I never thought of Elvis's pelvis. I want to be shaved and wiped in all places, I want to be beautiful like Snow White and men shall kiss me until their lips are too swollen so that I may awake, and so then I can serve American milk at my own funeral- it has to be the damned American milk, mother says. Mother the flag, and tall glasses of sweet milk.  
  
Dallas stares.  
  
I smell him. He smells of decay, and urine and iron rust of a factory. He bears his teeth, and strings of saliva like thin spider webs across his mouth, and his pink teeth and pulp gums bleed drops of dried and new blood that shine like macabre rubies. He bows his head slowly and his neck is like an inefficient machine that breaks down in this factory, and the rich men scream because time is money! Time is money! Wake up, got to work, go home, buy beer, and sleep damnit sleep.  
  
He spits letting the thick stiff glob of dark veined black blood dribble down his open pale lips, it ever so slowly falls to the floor with a large splatter of blood that flies like little firework sparks streaking across the floor that reaches for my shoes. Was he aiming for me? Perhaps Dallas will spit up rainbow out of those tar filled lungs and or a a-bomb .  
  
Dallas stares.  
  
"Sandy, why don't you just get married to Soda eh? 


	10. Burning

To say its been a while would be a drastic understatement indeed. Had some free time and I just want to attempt finish this fic once and for all....hope people enjoy it.

__________________________________________________________________________________

"I mean really. What else is going for you honey?" Dallas says with some tenderness, with stern and dry practical calm. His voice contradicts the horror of his fleshy and slack skin damp as a toad. He says honey with a brain curdling intonation.

Dally looks profoundly aware, standing firm with unflinchingly insane conviction on his slim young face-this pathetically dignified expression is one I would imagine is the expression of a man standing before a firing range, the sense he is forcing his will of his humanity against other people's guns. At sun set or the sun rising, the blood and his hair matching the color of the sky. (How vulgar it would be to die during midday.)

An angel, I think. He is an angel who has been blasted in the guts, who is suffering and will die forever. Suffering has always been a task for angels and gods and devils. Like how Christ in church is nailed on the cross for all time, tormented and dying, somehow blazing with the light of life.

Dally is a burning bush I realize. A sacred and rather stupid invention. (The blood from his chest is actually flames extending outwards) I never knew how hotly and fiercely holy, how purely inflamed a man could be.

"My work." I mumble, like a defendant in a hopeless case. I can barely speak, scalded by his ever burning presence. "I work. I do very important work."

Dally pauses ever so brightly as if he is translating this in his mind. His timing is perfect. "So you're waiting to bone your boss?"

"No." I do not even think about it, I say it like a sneeze. "I can't marry Soda." I choke on sobby vomity glob of mucus. "I don't love him."

Dallas laps at his own mouth like instead of blood all over his face it is butterscotch. He looks down at me like a disapproving soldier. He might want me to scrub the floor with a toothbrush.

"So fucking what? Marriage has nothing to do with love. Anyways, he loves you. Isn't that pretty? He still loves you. You don't even deserve it."

" But I don't _want_ it." I explain.

"Aw c'mon. What do you want? There's always his dick to think about!" Dally winks. "He was a good ride wasn't he. After work, invite him for a drink and take him home with you. He's traveled all this way to see you. You ought to give the poor bastard something for his troubles."

"I can't." I say lamely.

"Ah so I get it. You're on your period. No wonder you're such a big mope."

I shake my head. Such a statement should offend me, but I am not me anymore. I am living in some horrible myth, I have been made into someone else, depersonalized and pushed into some role I am entirely unprepared for- the bitch of the world.

"Then you're a dyke. Little Lesbian spinster Sandy married to her work."

I think about the funny appellation Dally has given me. I think about grabbing a breast, plunging my fingers inside another woman. There is something disgustingly violating and mannish in it. I feel as through I have turned into Soda.

Dally touches his long torso with his fingers with a boyish coyness, as if the question is: would you like to dance, to hold me. The answer : is just a bit. His wounds I imagine look like wet pretty gaping mouths and openings to kiss and lick. Maybe I am a lesbian after all.

"Women don't interest me." I claim. At least I can say that. I wasn't raised to be a lesbian. I was raised to be frigid like a proper girl.

"Neither do babies eh? You came all the way to Florida to get an abortion. Only whores and rich girls get abortions. But you're not attractive or honest enough to be a whore. You're not rich either, you got no big future ahead of you. So why?"Dallas barks. Like a dog. He rolls in my humiliation like a dog rolls in filth.

I try and imagine my breasts swelling and swinging with milk, my stomach protruding and bloated like some starving creature. Water gushing down my legs and a bloody glistening baby's head brutally forcing itself of me in a punishing contraction, a baseball tearing out of a nostril, the stupid villainy of it, to extract a personality from a squealing new body, to assault it with a gross crude greedy love, and give it an name, and expect it to be glad and grateful expect it to succeed and to get along with the other grubs.

Books lie. School lie. Parents lie. Mothers and Fathers do not really love their children. (Shhhh, God might hear us) They love them before they are even born, before they're even conceived. Their love has nothing to do with the thing they produced, or what it is. Rearing children is vanity, a strange project to make the task of living seem important.

Can't Dally see how lucky he is? He died a tragic clown death, but he just isn't anymore.

"It was a mistake." I whine, not a baby, but a tumor, a parasite. "We would have killed it in another way, a worser way."

"We. " Dally jeers. " I had nothing to do with that shit."

" Our children would live with us in a kind of miserable numb emptiness. It would have ended up like Soda, or me, or you. Soda would have resented me for trapping him. I would hate him for the same reason."

I sacrificed so much out of kindness for everyone, out of concern for everyone's dignity. But does anyone care? No. Growing up is learning nobody gives a damn about you. You don't even give a damn about you.

How I stole some of mothers and fathers money and I bought my bus ticket and left town (Christ they're expensive) all the way to Grandma. No one (thank god) tried to be nice to me. I urgently wanted to disappear forever.

I felt torn to pieces, like I knew what it was like to be eaten alive by a savage animal.

But I was hopeful. Travel is always a sort of death. Like converting to an religion, you must forget your past life, your sins, your family. You must be born again. I would emerge, Jonah slimy and digested from the whale.

I wish I had cried more over the time. Tears are a precious frightening thing- frightening because they are willed and they aren't at the same time. When they did come for me, they were stiff and thick as glue, and meaningless as dribble. I cried after my abortion, not for what I had done, but out of a frivolous sense of guilt, about the indignity of having to do it, I cried that I was a born a woman, that I had ate of a serpent. I cried because I had done something irrevocable and been forever changed (but not really. Thats a lie)

I went to secretary school to have a trade. To make myself more sellable. Like soap or Brillo pads. The secret was I've always wanted to be a writer. The difference between a secretary and a writer is like the difference between a nurse and a whore- their purpose is to make you feel better.

Soda thought I was sure cute with my strange thoughts, and my ideas and fantasies. But Soda didn't know anything, he didn't read except for auto magazines and playboy.

No one ever picked up a god damned book in our neighborhood, except to smash an spider. Ponyboy did supposedly, but he was young, so it was still considered 'OK'. Later, I knew the other boys would give Pony boy shit about it and he would stop, and chase skirts and drink, and his mind would be rendered useless pile of ads and animal wants.

I would sit at and wait to think whatever I wanted in the world, but I learned after many months of bitter and patient sitting, I had no thoughts at all. I was not spiritual, not clever, hollow and stupid, like everyone I had left behind. Attempts of writing never came to any fruition (more abortions), amateur indulgences. I send a poem about love to a magazine. They thanked and refused it. No doubt they could feel the fraud vibrating from the page. No doubt I may have loved Soda. I must have cared for him deeply to destroyed him as I did, to lie to him so consistently. But nobody wants to read about that. That makes people sick. Even Dallas's face looks a tinge green, like his head been wrapped in nickel. It hurts me, that that revolting creature is repulsed by me.

Most of my life of Tulsa was for the sake of my survival,blessedly forgotten. Out of sight and out of mind. I achieved a kind of sleep walk life.

When I did think of my family and my friends they were shadows swimming under water, tendrils of black smoke far away, premonitions of an enormous problem that was steadily gaining momentum, a theater where I would be both heroine and victim. But when it would come it would be like a holy ghost descending . Everything would be torn asunder, made comic and tiny, and like a wheel spinning over someone's head, I would be released and suddenly fly off my bleak little arc into black and limitless space.

"You look like an aborted child." I say, at Dally painted red self. He has changed from mother to child. "Beautiful but whole."

"Right." Dallas smirks proudly, putting his hands on his hips. "I am an aborted masterpiece. I aborted myself- death is just sliding back up the cunt of the universe. You see things never really die Sandy. They're only hidden, left unfinished."

"Sometimes things are finished for good. Soda and I are finished. The baby" ( I think the tumor's) finished. "You're finished. Johnny is finished. Don't you see? You aren't real." I say emphatically. "The story ended a long time ago. With the newspaper."

For a moment, Dally thinks. Death has made him a philsopher.

Dallas then says flatly. "I doubt you know how much of a dumb bitch you are, do you. You can't escape from any of us Sandy, you cannot escapes surprises. We live inside you and you are at last seeing the real, and hearing it. It cannot be fucked with or ignored. I am telling you the only truth that matters, and beyond the glory and beauty of what I say, what I show which is that is beyond words, there is _nothing_. I am where form and death and substance and innocence and sin hover upon the brink of meaninglessness, where you and I move through absurdity, and truth to silence. But am I here by accident, I think not. Did you invent me? Fuck no!"

"I... I don't understand," I take the bait.

Dally sits down on the floor, cross legged. He smiles up at me with a grotesque sugary serenity. He almost looks sweetly mischievous. A boy god. He looks like he might put a flute by his bloody teeth and charm me to dance. Dallas wants the world to dance, but only with him.

"All that time you felt that urge to seek something- something you couldn't put into words?You've been looking for _me_ Sandy babe- since you left Tulsa and here I am!" He laughed, then gags on some clot. "Your fucking holy grail. The crown of your travels. Your Excalibur. There's no hurry to how long we can stay here. Time for us has become an eternity. It doesn't matter , what you do where you look at, because all our lives, stopped two years ago."


	11. THE END?

Yes I've finally finshed this story. Only took me 8 years haha. Thanks to everyone who ever reviewed, it means so much. Long live the Outsiders!

* * *

"_There's no hurry to how long we can stay here. Time for us has become an eternity. It doesn't matter ,what you do, where you look at, because all our lives, stopped two years ago."_

I finish the sentence. So it is I've arrived at the end of my simple story. Or the start. For even we are at the end we are always at the beginning.

My fingers reek of ink and are pressed deep into the keys of my type writer. The twisted underwire of my bra cuts deep into my side, my shoulders ache and my hunched back realigns half-heartedly. How many hours have I sat like this? The newspaper and Soda's letters from the years lie creased on my thighs, and they slip away from me to the floor as I shift my numb and sweating legs. I remove my bra, and slide off my panties, letting them fall to my feet and step out of them. There is a light rust colored blood stain on the crotch lining. Of course. The body must intrude.

I stare at all the pages I have typed up, the torments and histories, the haunting remembrances of people I have known, now made into a stilted jarring flux of words, a long, ugly futile joke that must result in a confused and irreverent silence. I have no more to say, and what has been said must never be heard. I pull the papers out and stack them together and then toss it into the wastebasket. In the morning, I will probably retrieve them. Another thing unresolved. I'll try again.

Listlessly, I change, I prepare for sleep. I stumble to bed. I cannot sleep.

I lie in bed and think: What can I say about Tulsa, my friends in another life as dark to me as I am to myself? They were dimensions of this darkness, refractions of the dense prism of strange and mean but pure distress. I can think of all of them for hours and days, and I fear these thoughts like a solitary woman fears the sound of encroaching footsteps behind them on night roads.

Death and absence are not permanent silence. It suggests an intermission, concealment or an outwitting that is all, a severe and mute kind of going away. Why should it be that Dally dead and Johnny seem more alive and romantic than they ever could to me alive? Johnny was a kid, a small beautiful kid and Dally was a mean beautiful kid. The trajectory of our lives could be understood as the diminishing and wasting of innocence in a condition without curiosity, tenderness or hope. We were doomed, quite doomed. I live alone for corrupted and doomed beings must learn to, if they do not want to harm or be harmed.

And Soda? The correct thing to say would be I did not deserve him, but it would be frivolous also. Could we have been happy had we had married, had a child? I close my eyes, imagine his clear and handsome face, feel the phantom weight of his form on mine, I retain the texture of his skin on my skin. I miss his body like how I miss the despair of Tulsa, for absolutes- even the bleak ones can provide comfort to the guilty, the lonely and uncertain. It's something you can settle into.

Ponyboy wrote a book. I have read it. There were a great many words in it, some of them true, profound and very nice. I wasn't very important in. I was vague even. It caused me no torment. I closed the book. I surrendered to what I could not escape. I was altered out of recognition and all I felt was relief.

My eyes are green, not China blue.

Couldn't we all be fictions, inventions of some gasping precocious novelist? But I exist. Soda, Dally, Johnny the rest exist (or existed). Regardless of how heartily we were made to vanish and then were removed, uplifted and gilded into the sphere of myth, there was a real being to us, we felt pain. But now that the myth has ended, you probably do not know or want to know anything more. The world hasn't changed for me. It has shattered and will not be mended, it cannot be mocked or pieced together, or decoded. Stories are not time's or anyone's fool. What has happened has happened, I can't make sense of it. I see monstrosities everywhere.

But you will stop this story and read more stories , laugh, eat, cry, dance, kiss and sleep and worry maybe for a moment, you will rarely or occasionally remember that you apprehended them and me and worked upon us all with all the magic, the machinery of your thought, for what you possess and found of us is the light with which we could be mended. Perhaps you loved us even. You may sustain us as a presence inside your love that will bolster your love for more important things, for after two years to the day then what? What does it matter? We belong to the eternal now.


End file.
